Music@PL.PT Supports....

Music@PL.PT Welcomes........

The Midnight Reverie Trio, The Awarians and Gasoline will get together on a special evening in order to support a good cause.
With the goal of helping underprivileged kids getting some holidays, 3 bands set up by ex-Pats living in Krakow, will entertain you at the teatr Nowa Laznia in Nowa Huta.
Do not miss this event. Your presence can make a diference. Bring a friend as well.
Tickets are 8 zl in advance and 10 zl at the door.

After two weeks vacation in Portugal, I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts on today's music business, concerning mainly Portugal and Poland.

Today, as some years ago, the music industry keeps complaining that the internet, music sharing copying and other kings of piracy are ruining a once prosper industry. What they do forget is everything else that does not support music, in any format, and the artists themselves.

Music from both Poland and Portugal is not as air played as we'd all wish. BIS, Eska Rock and Trojka are some of the radios where one can listen to some new Polish music, and where of course, we won’t find any Polish Paris Hilton or Eros Ramazotti. The same would apply to such Portuguese radios as Radar, Oxigenio and Antena 3.

Even though it might seem enough to promote music, keep in mind that some of these radios only have one or 2 programmes where we can find these tunes.

Apart from this, we have the price for brand new cds. Whereas in Poland, it is possible to buy a local release by a mere 7 to 8 Eur, versus the 16 EUR for a foreign record, in Portugal sometimes, a record released by a Portuguese artist is more expensive than a foreign record, reaching sometimes an incredible 20 EUR.

For artists, not known in the market, such situation becomes one of the most difficult barriers to overcome. Not only they have to fight against the fact that their music cannot be listened anywhere, the music industry expects that such amount will be paid for a first release or an unknown record, with doubtful quality.

In Poland, fortunately, they have acknowledged that by having Polish music cheaper they can sell more, fight back the rise of piracy, and promote the artists as well.

But not only is the music industry to blame.

When back in Lisbon, I had the chance to see Spartak live in concert. I arranged with some friends to see this concert but unfortunately, once we got to this venue, 30min later than its supposed starting time, not only the room was empty, as no one from the band had arrived. These arrived around 1h30m later than what was said to be the starting time, and still, we were offered an extra 30 minutes waiting time.

Don’t know whose fault it is, but the band did not even apologize for such a delay. Perhaps, it has become a common practice. After all, a concert that should start at 23h30, started at 01h30!!!!!!

With such situations, is anyone in condition to complain that the music business is not going as expected?